Collab Aims to Evaluate Education Potential of Medical VR

Brigham and Women's Hospital is collaborating with Japan-based Jolly Good to evaluate the educational effects of its medical virtual reality (VR) solution as it explores an entry into the US market.

Per the collaboration, Kei Ouchi, MD, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, will become the medical advisor to Jolly Good. Brigham and Women's Hospital is an affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

Based in Tokyo, Jolly Good is a medical technology company that builds VR solutions for medical and welfare applications and artificial intelligence to analyze VR user behavior.

According to the press release, the medical AR/VR market is expanding. The Jolly Good medical VR solution allows medical professionals to create live-action 360-degree VR images, providing a realistic experience.

"Virtual Reality will clearly play a major role in the future of simulation and medical education. Jolly Good provides a wonderful platform that is high-quality, versatile, and engaging. I have no doubt that our learners will find the system to be really valuable," said Andrew J. Eyre, MD, an emergency medicine physician and medical director of the STRATUS Center at Harvard Medical School, in the press release.

Jolly Good has noted its plans to begin a full-scale entry into the US medical market. Further, in the future, the company plans on creating live-action medical VR in several medical departments under Ouchi's supervision.

"I realized the high quality of technology unique to Japan in Jolly Good's live-action VR technology and simple remote playback operation technology. Although there are many VR development companies in the U.S., I thought that the high level of Japanese unique technology could revolutionize medical education in the U.S. and VR medical technology for patients. I would like to make this dream-like goal a reality with my technology and experience," said Ouchi in a press release.

Recently, efforts involving the testing of VR solutions have become more common.

In March, Massachusetts General Hospital noted its plans to work alongside Rocket VR Health (RVH) to gather insights into the abilities of a VR digital therapeutic. This effort entails determining the therapeutic's efficacy in improving quality of life, symptom burden, distress, and self-efficacy among patients with blood cancer.

VR solutions are also increasingly being approved for use in clinical care.

In November 2021, the Food and Drug Administration approved the clinical use of EaseVRx, a virtual reality headset that guides chronic low back pain patients through an eight-week program based on cognitive behavioral skills and other methods. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) also recently established a unique Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) Level II code for the program, creating a pathway for Medicare and commercial payer coverage.